20 Never to Miss Recommendations for Your Blog.

Here today, we have been receiving much of emails asking for advice about starting a blog,
about how to blog, about blog topics, and about creating meaningful
content.
These are the answers and recommendations we tend to give.

Find Your Niche. You needn’t have a niche, but it
helps. When learning how to be a blogger, it’s important to ask yourself
what you’re passionate about. Running? Cooking? Being a parent? Have
you found your passion? If so, whatever it is, write about that. If not,
then you must first find your passion.
(Note: We generally recommend that people don’t start a blog about
minimalism or the paleo diet or any other heavily saturated topic. But
what we really mean when we say this is: don’t create a blog about
something unless you have a unique perspective. If you’ve embraced
simple living and have a unique perspective, then by all means have at
it. Enjoy yourself.)

Define Your Ideal Readers. Once you’ve found your
niche, you need to know who will be reading your blog. For example, we
blog about living intentionally. Thus, our ideal readers are people who
are interested in exploring minimalism so they can clear the path toward
more meaningful lives. If you want to write about your newborn baby
growing up, that’s wonderful: your ideal readers are probably your
friends and family. If you want to write about restoring classic cars,
that’s cool, too. Tailor your writing to your readers (whether it’s your
family or local community or whoever else will read your blog).

Add Value. Your blog must add value to its readers’
lives. This is the only way you will get Great Quality Readers to your
site (and keep them coming back). Adding value is the only way to get
someone’s long-term buy-in. We both learned this after a decade of
leading and managing people in the corporate world.

Be Original. Yes, there are other blogs out there
about the same thing you want to write about. Question: So why is your
blog different? Answer: Because of you. You are what makes your blog different. It’s about your perspective, your creativity, the value that you add.

Be Interesting. Write epic, awesome content. Especially if you want people to share it with others.

Be Yourself. Part of being interesting is telling your
story. Every person is unique, and your story is an important one. The
important part of storytelling, however, is removing the superfluous
details that make the story uninteresting. A great storyteller removes
99% of what really happens—the absorptive details—and leaves the
interesting 1% for the reader.

Be Honest. Your blog needs to be authentic—it needs to feel
real—if you want people to read it. You can be your blog, or your blog
can be you. That is, do you really embody the stuff you write about? If
not, people will see through you. “Be the change you want to see in the
world,” is the famous Gandhi quote. Perhaps bloggers should build the
blog they want to write for the world.

Transparency. Being transparent is different from
being honest. You needn’t share every detail about your life just for
the sake of being honest. Always be honest, and be transparent when it
adds value to what you’re writing. (You won’t ever see pictures of us
using the restroom on our site, because that’s just not relevant.)

Time. Once you’ve learned how to start a blog,
you’ll learn that blogging takes a lot of time, especially if you’re as
neurotic as we are (we spent over 10 hours testing the fonts on this
site). And see those black Twitter and Facebook icons in the header? We
spent hours on those, deciding what was right for us). That said, once
you have your design set up, don’t tweak it too much. Instead, spend the
time on your writing.

Vision. The reason our site design looks good is because we have a great host,
we have a great theme, and most important, we had a vision of how we
wanted our blog to look. Once we had the vision, we worked hard to make
that vision a reality. (Note: neither of us had any design experience
prior to starting a blog.) It’s hard to create a beautiful blog if you
don’t know what you want it to look like.

Find Your Voice. Over time, good writers discover
their voice and their writing tends to develop a certain aesthetic, one
that is appealing to their readers. Finding your voice makes your
writing feel more alive, more real, more urgent.

We Instead of You. Use the the first-person plural when possible. Statements of we and our are more powerful than than you and your,
especially when talking about negative behaviors or tendencies. The
first person comes off as far less accusatory. Think of it this way:
we’re writing peer-to-peer—we are not gods.

When to Post. Question: When is the best day and
time to publish a blog post? Answer: It doesn’t really matter. We don’t
adhere to a particular schedule. Some weeks we post one essay; sometimes
we post three. Yes, it is important to write consistently, but you
needn’t get too bogged down in the details.

Social Media. Yes, we recommend using Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram
to help connect with your audience and other bloggers, but don’t get
too caught up in it. Focus on the writing first, social media
thereafter.

Ignore Negative Criticism and Stupidity. Sure, we
get a lot of negative comments and stupid questions from ignorant people
who aren’t really our readers (e.g., negative comments like “You’re not
real minimalists” and stupid questions like “Are you guys gay?”). We
call these people seagulls:
they fly in, crap on your site, and fly away. But we pay them no mind,
because we didn’t start our blog for them. Delete their comment and move
on.

Research. Spend time researching what you’re
writing about. The reason we are able to use so many helpful, relevant
links in our essays is because we put in the time to research our
topics.

Keep It Simple. This is where minimalism can be
applied to starting any blog, irrespective of its genre. No need to
place superfluous advertisements or widgets all over your site. Stick to
the basics and remove anything you don’t need. Remove anything that
doesn’t add value.

Picture. Put a picture of yourself on your blog.
People identify with other people. If two goofy guys from Ohio aren’t
too afraid to put their pictures on their site, then you have nothing to
worry about.

Comments. If you’re going to have comments on your site, then read The Five Words That Kill Your Blog by Scott Stratten.

Live Your Life. You’re blogging about your life (or
about certain aspects of your life, at least), so you still need to
live your life. There are things that we always put before writing:
exercise, health, relationships, experiences, personal growth,
contribution.

20 Never to Miss Recommendations for Your Blog.
Reviewed by Nollyrex Emmanuel
on
22:56
Rating: 5